


allow my secrets in

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Series: kiss prompts [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Morning After, Weapons, but only very vaguely, tldr kaze familiarizes azura with his ninja gear shortly after they Get Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: Her hand finds the shuriken so easily, fingers darting into the narrow gap between his belt and his ribcage and pulling loose the naked blade that sits flush against the bones beneath, she can only conclude that she must watch him more closely than even she herself knows.





	allow my secrets in

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Anise, for prompt #23: kiss on the hand. This one spiraled, but the "don't hug me until I've pulled all the secret knives out of my clothes" idea had been sitting in my mind for a bit (thanks, Colette!) and I jumped at the chance to write it.
> 
> Title from Crywolf's "Ribcage," [the heartgrinding acoustic version.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlI9n1AE8JM)

Strange as it may sound, last night she thought he had been simply refusing to let her near him out of shame.

He’d just returned from a scouting mission, close to midnight, the whisper of his footfalls across the grass outside her tent impossible for anyone who had not been listening desperately for it to detect. And then Kaze was lifting the flap and entering, and she had taken three steps forward at a run, only to find herself brought up short by his hands firm on her shoulders, holding her away from him at arm’s length.

Azura had looked at him with a wrinkled brow, as if to ask if this was part of that strange, deep preoccupation the ninja seemed to have with propriety, similar to the way he (still) always addressed her as _milady_ and allowed her to walk before him everywhere—things that made closeness a problem, or at least a challenge, even when they were completely alone and had no one to be but themselves.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her, and she’d been half about to remind him he could never—but when he turned his hand a little, the guttering lamplight had caught against one of his blades, the wicked curved length of steel jutting out the middle of a gauntlet, arcing downwards to a point level with her upper arm.

Then, of course, she understood; it wouldn’t do to inadvertently run herself through in her haste to be close. At the very least it might lose her some hair, or she’d come out in the morning looking as though she had taken a pair of scissors to her own clothes. And so Azura had stepped back and waited for him to disarm, quick and quiet and methodical, without looking at her, as though he needed momentarily to forget her presence to retreat into the part of himself that knew where he’d hidden all his weapons. Because it was only fair, she watched the table instead of watching him, and tried to recall the names he’d been teaching her at her own insistence. Shuriken and kunai and saw-toothed shikoro. Hook and rope. Four silver sewing needles, two to each sleeve, slipped into the lining. More ways to wound than it seemed possible for a single person to carry, out of sight.

It had taken forever before he came back to himself, before he looked up and smiled at her, hands empty, though the truth is it must barely have been any time at all.

“Is that everything?”

“That is everything, milady,” he said. Then he opened his arms, finally, and let her go into them, and then it was enough to let all her other questions fall away and stand there holding him until the lamp went out.

Now, waking, she doesn’t need to tell him her dreams are jagged. She already knows she’ll find him on his feet and already rearming, his back to the bed as he busies himself with his tools. He never returns to his own tent after passing the night with her, for all that he always takes care to leave well before dawn, slipping away instead to attend to some duty or other, some task that needs accomplishing. It’s only now, indeed, that she’s begun to learn who he is when he’s not at his work, and that’s been no small endeavor.

Azura rises, stands, crosses the floor toward him like a shadow. Her hand finds the shuriken so easily, fingers darting into the narrow gap between his belt and his ribcage and pulling loose the naked blade that sits flush against the bones beneath, she can only conclude that she must watch him more closely than even she herself knows.

Kaze, caught, can only turn over his shoulder and stare at her with bewilderment and something almost like fear in his eyes, because she’s found him half-dressed and between selves. The truth is neither of them have been trained to the trust that intimacy requires. The truth is they are each entirely too good at concealment—at making shadows, at holding things at arm’s length—to fully believe that they are ever safe.

_Is that everything?_

But, as she watches him bring his eyes forward to meet hers—watches as his body relaxes and he comes back to himself, as he always does, slowly, slowly—she cannot help wondering if maybe this can be the place where they begin.

“That was impressive,” he murmurs, at last. When he reaches out it’s not for the blade but for her free hand, to raise to his lips and kiss, soft as the morning not yet breaking around them. “Milady is a fast learner.”

Azura smiles, despite herself, for all she knows there’s so much learning left to do.

“Stay just a little,” she says.


End file.
